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CHAPTER 35

Bethel Revisited.1* God said to Jacob: Go up now to Bethel. Settle there and build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.a2So Jacob told his household and all who were with him: “Get rid of the foreign gods* among you; then purify yourselves and change your clothes.
3Let us now go up to Bethel so that I might build an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.”
4They gave Jacob all the foreign gods in their possession and also the rings they had in their ears* and Jacob buried them under the oak that is near Shechem.
5Then, as they set out, a great terror fell upon the surrounding towns, so that no one pursued the sons of Jacob.

6Thus Jacob and all the people who were with him arrived in Luz (now Bethel) in the land of Canaan.b7There he built an altar and called the place El-Bethel,* for it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.c

8Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died. She was buried under the oak below Bethel, and so it was named Allon-bacuth.*

9On Jacob’s arrival from Paddan-aram, God appeared to him again and blessed him.
10God said to him:

So he was named Israel.
11Then God said to him: I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will stem from you, and kings will issue from your loins.
12The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you; and to your descendants after you I will give the land.e

13Then God departed from him.
14In the place where God had spoken with him, Jacob set up a sacred pillar, a stone pillar, and upon it he made a libation and poured out oil.f15Jacob named the place where God spoke to him Bethel.

Jacob’s Family.16Then they departed from Bethel; but while they still had some distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel went into labor and suffered great distress.
17When her labor was most intense, the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for now you have another son.”
18With her last breath—for she was at the point of death—she named him Ben-oni;* but his father named him Benjamin.
19Thus Rachel died; and she was buried on the road to Ephrath (now Bethlehem).*g20Jacob set up a sacred pillar on her grave, and the same pillar marks Rachel’s grave to this day.

21Israel moved on and pitched his tent beyond Migdal-eder.
22While Israel was encamped in that region, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. When Israel heard of it, he was greatly offended.*h

The sons of Jacob were now twelve.
23The sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun;
24* the sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin;
25the sons of Rachel’s maidservant Bilhah: Dan and Naphtali;
26the sons of Leah’s maidservant Zilpah: Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.

27Jacob went home to his father Isaac at Mamre, in Kiriath-arba (now Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had resided.
28The length of Isaac’s life was one hundred and eighty years;
29then he breathed his last. He died as an old man and was gathered to his people. After a full life, his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.

* [35:1–7] Jacob returns to Bethel and founds the sanctuary, an event that forms a “bookend” to the first visit to Bethel in 28:10–22. To enter the Lord’s sanctuary, one must purify oneself and get rid of all signs of allegiance to other gods (Jos 24:23; Jgs 10:16). Jacob also seems to initiate the custom of making a pilgrimage to Bethel (see Ps 122:1 and Is 2:3, 5).

* [35:2] Foreign gods: divine images, including those of household deities (see note on 31:19), that Jacob’s people brought with them from Paddan-aram.

* [35:4] Rings…their ears: the earrings may have belonged to the gods because earrings were often placed on statues.

* [35:7] El-Bethel: probably to be translated “the god of Bethel.” This is one of several titles of God in Genesis that begin with El (= God), e.g., El Olam (21:33), El Elyon (14:18), El the God of Israel (33:20), El Roi (16:13), and El Shaddai. Most of these (except El Shaddai) are tied to specific Israelite shrines.

* [35:18] Ben-oni: means either “son of my vigor” or, more likely in the context, “son of affliction.” Benjamin: “son of the right hand,” meaning a son who is his father’s help and support.

* [35:19] Bethlehem: the gloss comes from a later tradition that identified the site with Bethlehem, also called Ephrath or Ephratha (Jos 15:59; Ru 4:11; Mi 5:1). But Rachel’s grave was actually near Ramah (Jer 31:15), a few miles north of Jerusalem, in the territory of Benjamin (1 Sm 10:2).

* [35:22] The genealogy in vv. 23–29 is prefaced by a notice about Reuben’s sleeping with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. Such an act is a serious challenge to the authority of the father (cf. 2 Sm 3:7 and 16:21). In his final testament in chap. 49, Jacob cites this act of Reuben as the reason for Reuben’s loss of the authority he had as firstborn son (49:4). Reuben’s act is one more instance of strife in the family and of discord between father and son.

* [35:24–26] Benjamin is here said to have been born in Paddan-aram, apparently because all twelve sons of Jacob are considered as a unit.

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